Chirps

Seeing a thumbnail of the video How to Build Immense Inner Strength | David Goggins, I immediately and instinctively said to myself in my head: “inner strength is not something you build; it’s something that is always within. What you do is you remove the obstacles that are holding it back. You let the light shine through.”

Perhaps the image of building oneself up piece by piece is something that is quite appealing to a person who judges oneself as somehow being broken, incomplete or unfinished inside. Perhaps that person also judges themselves as being weak, ascribing this quality to themselves as a response to something particular and generalizing outwards. This is the essence of self-improvement.

Microsongs by Slowly light is a very zappy and electronic-sounding EP that is an homage to the Arturia Microbrute. Similar to Reverie by The Exponent, the whole EP is made only with samples from the synth. The artist also commented on the YouTube video that the Microbrute is actually quite good at making percussive sounds, referring to the parent comment mentioning the Drumbrute.

One thing to keep in mind when listening to this EP is that it’s as much of a technical exercise as it a musical composition. Thus, it may not be to everyone’s aesthetic taste.

I got to try the Glove80 keyboard today. Unfortunately, what they say is true: it’s really hard to instantly transition from a standard keyboard to a split ergonomic one. And I found out two key reasons why:

1. The column stagger makes it so that standard keyboard muscle memory needs to be reworked to accommodate the different key positions.
2. Rearrangement of key buttons like the spacebar and backspace makes it so that I have to hunt for them.

I’m excited about how my own split ergonomic experiments go. I wonder if it’s just as hard to transition to the keyboard of my choice.

I heard this song on the webpage of octasine – a free and open source FM synth plugin. It’s one of the best plugin demos I’ve ever stumbled upon and it’s also a great track on its own. The Exponent expertly leverages FM synthesis to create what I can only describe as nature sounds: chirping, croaking, squeaking and so on. Not to mention the great sound design of the main instruments. They mix old and new styles of synth sound design in a wonderful way.

This track was created entirely in the aformentioned octasine as a part of the one synth challenge on KVR Audio Forums (thread). The Exponent got the first place with this track.

“In 22 minutes I am going to time travel one hour into the future.”

— @knights@merveilles.town

I saw this toot last night, but only in the morning after did I realize that I’d also travelled through time. Living in an area with daylight savings time that switches on March 9, 02:00 is an interesting experience for sure. Were it the night between Sunday and Monday, I would have lost an hour of precious sleep out of nowhere. I’m glad it’s the weekends now.

I’ve known about 4D Golf for a while; CodeParade’s devlog series introduced me to the game. Since I never played it though, it took me quite some time to discover the amazing original soundtrack made by philmakesnoise.

Link to playlist on YouTube.

What I especially like about it is how it blends the electric guitar with the “analogue synth” sound. In addition, the soundtrack manages to paint a picture of a strange and bizarre world of 4-dimensional golf without resorting to many cliches.

I think the music holds very well on its own and should also be enjoyed separately from the game.

I’ve wanted to check out laamaa’s music for a while now. My first exposure to his work was through his collaboration with muLperi on the track Interstellar Nightmare (YouTube, Bandcamp). So far, I feel like My First Sega is his best solo work.

My favorite tracks (in order of preference):

1. tower of power
2. vs mode
3. november blues

This music is destroying my preconceptions around trackers. For some reason, I assumed that all tracker music sounded robotic and artificial, but these tracks feel organic and musical.

https://steviasphere.bandcamp.com/album/pool-water-blue

This album’s artificial summer pool aesthetic hits just right in midwinter. I’m glad I stumbled upon it. It’s a solace from the cold.